“No, no, it is impossible!” cried Miüsov, beside himself.

“Well, if it is impossible for Pyotr Alexandrovitch, it is impossible for me, and I won’t stop. That is why I came. I will keep with Pyotr Alexandrovitch everywhere now. If you will go away, Pyotr Alexandrovitch, I will go away too, if you remain, You stung him by what you said about family harmony, Father Superior, he does not admit he is my relation. That’s right, isn’t it, Von Sohn? Here’s Von Sohn. How are you, Von Sohn?”

“Do you mean me?” muttered Maximov, puzzled.

“Of course I mean you,” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch. “Who else? The Father Superior could not be Von Sohn.”

“But I am not Von Sohn either. I am Maximov.”

“No, you are Von Sohn. Your reverence, do you know who Von Sohn was? It was a famous murder case. He was killed in a house of harlotry. I believed that is what such places are called among you—he was killed and robbed, and in spite of his venerable age, he was nailed up in a box and sent from Petersburg to Moscow in the luggage van, and while they were nailing him up, the harlots sang songs and played the harp, that is to say, the piano. So this is that very Von Sohn. He has risen from the dead, hasn’t he, Von Sohn?”

“What is happening? What’s this?” voices were heard in the group of monks.

“Let us go,” cried Miüsov, addressing Kalganov.

“No, excuse me,” Fyodor Pavlovitch broke in shrilly, taking another step into the room. “Allow me to finish. There in the cell you blamed me for behaving disrespectfully just because I spoke of eating gudgeon, Pyotr Alexandrovitch. Miüsov, my relation, prefers to have plus de noblesse que de sincerité in his words, but I prefer in mine plus de sincerité que de noblesse, and—damn the noblesse! That’s right, isn’t it, Von Sohn? Allow me, Father Superior, though I am a buffoon and play the buffoon, yet I am the soul of honour,and I want to speak my mind. Yes, I am the soul of honour, while in Pyotr Alexandrovitch there is wounded vanity and nothing else. I came here, perhaps to have a look and speak my mind. My son, Alexey, is here, being saved. I am his father; I care for his welfare, and it is my duty to care. While I’ve been playing the fool, I have been listening and having a look on the sly; and now I want to give you the last act of the performance. You know how things are with us? As a thing falls, so it lies. As a thing once has fallen, so it must lie for ever. Not a bit of it! I want to get up again. Holy Father, I am indignant with you. Confession is a great sacrament, before which I am ready to a bow down reverently; but there in the cell, they all kneel down and confess Can it be right to confess aloud? It was ordained by the holy fathers to confess in secret: then only your confession will be a mystery, and so it was of old. But how can I explain to him before every one that I did this and that …well, you understand what—sometimes it would not be proper to talk about it—so it is really a scandal! No, fathers, one might be carried along with you to the Flagellants, I dare say … at the first opportunity I shall write to the Synod, and I shall take my son, Alexey, home.”

We must note here that Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for the weak spot. There had been at one time malicious rumours which had even reached the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but in others where the institution of elders existed) that too much respect was paid to the elders, even to the detriment of the authority of the Superior, that the elders abused the sacrament of confession and so on and so on—absurd charges which had died away of themselves everywhere. But the spirit of folly, which had caught up Fyodor Pavlovitch, and was bearing him on the current of his own nerves into lower and lower depths of ignominy, prompted him with this old slander. Fyodor Pavlovitch did not understand a word of it, and he could not even put it sensibly, for on this occasion no one had been kneeling and confessing aloud in the elder’s cell, so that he could not have seen anything of the kind. He was only speaking from confused memory of old slanders. But as soon as he had uttered his foolish